Henry Hitchcock Letters

Henry Hitchcock (1792-1839) was the grandson of Ethan Allen (1738-1789); his mother Lucy Caroline Allen (1768-1842) was the third child of Allen and his first wife Mary Brownson. His father was Judge Samuel Hitchcock (1755-1813) who was the first State's Attorney for Chittenden County (Vermont), the first Attorney General of Vermont, and an original trustee of the University of Vermont. Henry Hitchcock attended Middlebury College and graduated from the University of Vermont in 1811. In 1815, he was admitted to the Vermont Bar. He started for Mobile, Alabama in October 1816, arriving in January 1817. He first worked as a lawyer.

In 1818, President Monroe appointed Hitchcock Secretary of the Alabama Territory, similar to the modern day role of Secretary of State of Alabama. Hitchcock was one of a committee of fifteen men who wrote the state constitution in 1819. As a result, Hitchcock became the first author of a book published in Alabama: The Alabama Justice of the Peace, a legal guide. He was elected Alabama's first Attorney General by the General Assembly, a role he held until 1823. Hitchcock welcomed General Lafayette to then-capital Cahaba/Cahawba during his tour of the United States in 1824-1825. The general paid Hitchcock a personal visit due to his friendship with Ethan Allen.

Through an appointment by President John Quincy Adams, Hitchcock served as US District Attorney for southern Alabama, a role he held from about 1826 to 1830. Privately, he continued to work as a lawyer but also worked as a commercial real estate developer, aiding in the growth of the port town of Mobile. Two notable Hitchcock buildings were the Barton Academy, the first free public school in Alabama, and the Government Street Presbyterian Church. Through these efforts, Hitchcock was known as the wealthiest man in Alabama at the time with a fortune of over two million dollars.

In 1835, he was elected, again by the General Assembly, as an associate justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. The next year, he became chief justice. He resigned this position the year after that in order to focus on his active business interests during the Panic of 1837, which caused many financial hardships.

Hitchcock married Ann Erwin (1803-1854) in 1821 and they had eight children, though five died young. Three survived to adulthood: Caroline, Henry Hitchcock Jr., and Ethan Allen. Henry Hitchcock Jr. (1829-1902) was on the personal staff of General Sherman and was present during the "march to the sea" during the Civil War. He went on to work as a lawyer in St. Louis, Missouri and helped to found the American Bar Association and the George Washington University School of Law. Ethan Allen Hitchcock (1835-1909) worked as a merchant in St. Louis, was an Ambassador to Russia (1897), and Secretary of the Interior (1899-1907).

Henry Hitchcock died on August 11, 1839 of yellow fever during one of the worst such epidemics in Mobile history.

John Norton Pomeroy (1792-1881) was the son of Dr. John Pomeroy (1764-1844), the prominent Burlington doctor and the first faculty member of the University of Vermont Medical College. He graduated from the University of Vermont in 1809 and was a close friend of Henry Hitchcock (1792-1839). Pomeroy was admitted to the Chittenden County Bar in 1816 and worked as a lawyer, frequently in debt collection. His inheritance from his father precipitated his retirement. He was engaged in political efforts, being elected as a member of the Vermont Constitutional Conventions of 1836 and 1849 as well as other state and local offices. He was a friend of George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882) with whom he worked to erect a monument to Ethan Allen in Burlington.

Pomeroy was an original member of the Burlington Unitarian Church (1816). He married Lucia Loomis (1800-1877d. 1878) in 1819. At the time of his death, he was the oldest native-born resident of Burlington and oldest UVM alum.